A wide variety of block toys presently exist, including those permitting connection of individual blocks by mutually snapping concave portions and convex portions formed in and on the individual blocks and those making use of a magnet arranged on a block and a magnetic member arranged on another block so that these blocks can be connected together by magnetic force.
Of the above-described conventional block toys, the former type of block toys, in which individual blocks are connected together by mutual snapping of concave portions and convex portions formed in and on the individual blocks, are limited in the direction of connection. A limitation is therefore obviously imposed on the number and variety of structures which can be formed by connecting the blocks. The latter type of block toys, which make use of blocks provided with magnets and blocks having magnetic members, are severely limited in the number of ways in which the blocks may be attached to each other, decreasing the versatility of the blocks and potentially frustrating a child attempting to build with the blocks.
Prior magnetic block systems have used rotatable disk magnets that are fixed in casings, but the magnets are not freely moveable within the casings. Instead, these magnets are polarized so that the poles are on opposite circumferential edges, and the magnets can only rotate about one fixed axis to align their poles with each other. However, in developing the present invention, freely moveable magnets polarized at opposite faces were found to form stronger magnetic connections than rotatable magnets polarized at opposite edges when incorporated into building blocks.